Trial flight paths affect Rowhook

Jackie Bateman, Sally Knight and Linda Brennan of Rowhook, Gatwick flights over village

Published:18:00Saturday 21 June 2014

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Aeroplanes are flying over Rowhook ‘every two minutes’ and causing disturbance at night due to Gatwick Airport’s trial flight paths, residents claim.

The flight paths have been met by protests in Warnham in recent months, and have also affected Rowhook, said residents Sally Knight, Jackie Bateman and Linda Brennan.

However, since the airport has been testing new flight paths, the frequency of flights over Rowhook has increased.

Linda said: “They are allowed to fly all night, I really notice that.

“I could be lying in bed and the lights are flashing in through the window.

“If there is an increasing capacity and they are flying all night, the importance of that in terms of noise and disturbance would be quite significant.”

Jackie explained that residents of the area knew where the current flight paths are and have tolerated them, but ‘it is getting worse and worse’.

She said: “People spend a lot of money on their houses in farmland, that is why we want to be out here, because we don’t want to be near the villages.

“It is getting worse and worse - we are getting them every two minutes. It is affecting everybody around here.”

Sally added: “When you talk to them you get letters back saying ‘look in the sky and they are further away than you think’, but that’s not true.”

The trial flight paths have seen aircraft taking off from Gatwick over Warnham, Rowhook and the surrounding area since February.

Gatwick Airport said the new departure route enables planes to climb more quickly after take-off, reducing the overall number of people affected by aircraft noise, adding that they had been specifically designed to avoid flying over the majority of populated areas.